Hi folks,

Should be an easy question, but who knows. I'm looking for a general purpose, intra-frame only, high quality video codec that supports arbitrary resolutions and framerates. It can be for DirectShow or QuickTime. Basically I want DV with arbitrary framerates and resolutions.

Does any such thing exist? If so, what would you suggest? I'm willing to pay a modest sum for it.

So... is the answer that there is none? I can't believe it.

I'd say that PhotoJPEG is what you're looking for.

Graeme

High bitrate MJPEG is what everyone seems to be using for that
work and different resolutions and framerate. MJPEG stands for
motion jpeg. Kinda is the same as DV only more general.

Sounds like that's exactly what I need. Now just have to find a good codec implementation. Any recommendations?

You might also want to check Huffyuv or QT Animation

I know of these codecs, but I'm not sure if they support high-
bitrates and how well they'll handle higher resolutions. Each seem
to have a demo available so you can try it out. They are cheap
as well!

MainConcept (http://www.mainconcept.com/codecs.shtml) (they make a good MPEG encoder so this would be my first one to try)
Morgan Multimedia (http://www.morgan-multimedia.com/) (were good in the past, don't know how they are now)
Pegasus Imaging (http://www.pegasusimaging.com/picvideomjpeg.htm) (never used this myself)

What about DVCPRO? Should I use that?

Basically I want something that I can use for my final masters to pump into Canopus Procoder for DVDs, but it needs to support 24p. So it needs to be as good as DV if not better.

Have you looked into the HuffYUV codec (http://neuron2.net/www.math.berkeley.edu/benrg/huffyuv.html) ??
Have fun.

DVCPRO is just DV with some different parameters. It is as strict
as plain DV is so I would not use that in this case. Take a look
at the suggestions already offered.

Thanks.

I tried QuickTime's MJPEG-A and B and they do look excellent. I'm having a hard time telling if they're as good as DV though.

I'll also take a look at Huffyuv. Looks promising. Thanks a lot for that suggestion.

Ah, this huffyuv works like a charm. This is the codec I've been looking for I think. Great stuff. Thanks!

I am very interested in this huffyuv codec, can I capture via my firewire card directly with it, or not ?

Regards
Darko

I don't think that's possible. Firewire capture just captures the data stream directly with no modifcation to it. It's not like analog capture where you're encoding it too. So I think you need to get DV first then export it with an NLE to huffyuv.

But once you do it's fantastic. It's only 2x as big as DV, which is pretty amazing when you think about it considering it's lossless. I'm going to do all my mastering with it from now on.

<<<-- But once you do it's fantastic. It's only 2x as big as DV, which is pretty amazing when you think about it considering it's lossless. I'm going to do all my mastering with it from now on. -->>>

Thanx for the answer Peter,

now I wonder why should I use this codec cause when I once put my video to DV codec it is already compressed ie the quality is degraded. All I can think of is if you have multiple recompression od dv video, and want to have lossless codec for intermediate renderings (color correction etc...)

Best regards

That's correct, Darko. It is usually used for moving stuff from
application to application to not have any quality degredation.

In theory you could make an application that would capture from
your camera in another format / codec. It would not increase any
quality, though. It would just be the same as loading your DV
file up in an NLE and exporting it in another format, only then
realtime.